Daniel Wainwright: Modesty, pride . . . you might as well flush it down the pan
There are some things you just don't talk about in public. Religion, politics and money tend to cover all the bases.
Tell someone you're an atheist and they look at you as though you're about to go and explain to their kids where their Christmas presents or their baby brothers and sisters come from (no, not the same place).
Tell them who you vote for and they think you're either a) Arthur Scargill, b) racist, c) trying to bring back the Victorian workhouse or, worst of all, d) Nick Clegg.
And tell them how much you earn and they'll inevitably think you're being paid too much for sitting on your backside all day and never, ever making anyone else a drink (that last bit was added in by me – Ed).
If you'd let me, I'd add another one into that mix of taboo topics, no-go areas and conversation killers – potty training.
I can feel you recoil from the page. I can hear you trying desperately to click a link to another part of the website
Basically, you've just proved my point.
Potty training is mind numbingly dreadful. It is the moment in which any self-respecting parent looks at the puddle on the floor and wonders what the hell they were playing at adding to the over-crowded planet in the first place.
In my case, the worst moments are not those with the rubber gloves and the bottle of carpet cleaner. That's the same experience as someone with a puppy has to go through. It's the moments when things have actually gone to plan that are the most soul-crushing.
Every time anything goes where it belongs it has to be met with a round of enthusiastic, encouraging and affirming applause.
I don't know about you, but I haven't praised someone else's bodily functions since I was in primary school and one of my classmates waited until the exact moment the teacher had gone out of the room to announce 'silence please, everybody freeze' and let rip.
But here I am flinching as a two-year-old tells anyone who will listen what she's been up to, reddening as she announces at full volume to the world in a particularly echo-prone and silent branch of Dunelm that she has indeed done a . . . well, you get the picture.
It is the moment the last shred of modesty or pride vanishes forever. It takes years to condition a child to be in some way coy about how their bits work, to instil a sense of shame and embarrassment that will carry them through the surly years of adolescence and into their 20s.
And then just like that it falls away as the porcelain pot in the corner of the bathroom becomes as fundamental to the evening's entertainment as the box of wires and plastic in the corner of the lounge.
It offers a moment of clarity, seeing the utter delight on her face at what Alan Partridge would describe as 'splashdown', a reminder that sometimes the littlest things in life are the best.
My little monster is determined to become Little Miss Independent, refusing to accept assistance to get on or off the loo. To her, it is the gateway to being grown up in the way a first set of wheels is to a 17-year-old or the keys to a first house are to a 20 or 30-something.
It's the first major test of her education, the landmark that says she'll be able to function in polite society when she gets to school.
But there will be no certificate, no celebration and no-one else but me, her mother and her grandparents to tell her that she's special and that she's done well.
Yet while I'd never dream of getting her into a little black gown and a mortar board simply for mastering the potty, this first milestone is possibly the most important of all.
And it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase 'I've trained for this s…' (OK that's enough).
